La Passacaglia

SSCS

Building Houses From Scraps

Orange Crush Mystery Quilt

Carolina Crossroads Mystery

Friday, May 27, 2011

Let's go fly a kite? My intention is to write a post but I'm very distracted at the moment. We're watching Mary Poppins! LOL Do you remember when the movie first came out? I do. It was wondrous. I also remember reading the Mary Poppins books. I even had a Mary Poppins doll.

I'm pleased to say gluten-free cooking has resumed in our house. The Tramp had his tests for celiac disease yesterday, which meant we had to go back on a gluten-rich diet for four weeks prior to the tests. And much to our surprise...neither of us liked it! I didn't want to contaminate our kitchen all over again with gluten flours so we went out to eat way more than we should have. So back to the new "normal." I got to bake bread again Wednesday. :-) Brown bread and banana bread. Rice flour, even brown rice flour isn't particularly brown so the brown bread has both coffee and molasses in it. Pretty good.

At bee on Tuesday, Mom showed off her Kim Diehl Bittersweet Briar quilt top. Isn't it pretty! I need to finish mine.

But I have been plugging away at my Patches & Pinwheels. :-)

And constructed and mailed two more swap blocks.

We had some major rain storms this afternoon. The ducks huddled on the edge of the pond at the foot of our driveway.

Father goose kept right on grazing through the worst of it.

Once again brown water from the creek spread across the pond. Ugh.

The mail carrier showed up in the middle of the worst of it too. He did manage to make it through before the water went over the road. Timing is everything. :-)

We had the gutters cleaned a few weeks ago and the downspouts were gushing satisfactorily. :-)

Father goose held his ground as the water rose.

Soon it was rushing over the road and down to the creek.

When the water reached the ducks they had a grand time splashing and flapping in it.

Mother goose stuck tight to her nest.

Father goose finally had to move or swim. :-)

But kept right on grazing. Must be something appealing about wet grass. I wouldn't know. :-)

So I guess the pond will be brown again for a few weeks. Dang. It just cleared from the last time.

Some of us aren't the least bit bothered....about anything. Give her a pillow and all is well with her world. :-)

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I had every intention of doing more gardening this morning while it was still cool, but I was just feeling so rotten. After we got done outside yesterday I wound up with pain and pressure in my chest and having to use my inhaler, and felt yucky and nauseous for the rest of the day. I couldn't figure out why I was wheezing so much, but The Tramp suggested maybe there is a lot of mold in the compost/soil mixture I was working with. That's entirely possible. I was still feeling pretty lousy this morning so I opted to sit quietly at my sewing machine and just chain-piece. I'm not usually so focused. :-) But today I just felt the better for having some mindless sewing to keep me occupied.

See those 16-patches? Those are made from four-patches I received from my bee's swap. We swapped six-inch four-patches and half-square triangles because they can be cut down to any size you want. Problem is, the pattern I've chosen to use them in meant some major cutting down. 340 of them down to 3 1/2 inches! Also 336 half-square triangles. I thought I'd be strip cutting half of what I need for the quilt but Mom gave me her share of swap blocks too so it is more than enough for the whole thing. (Thanks Mom.....I think.) At least I've been cutting for several months so the process has been somewhat bearable. :-)

This is what 85 16-patches looks like. A day's worth of sewing. :-)

This is for Bonnie Hunter's Patches & Pinwheels pattern and she makes all the 16-patches from strips. Easy peasy. So not only was I doing this the hard way to begin with, I took approximately half of the four-patches apart and mixed the fabrics up a bit. Call me OCD! So in the end, most of the 16-patches have two four-patches made from the original two fabrics and the other two four-patches are mixed. I was so deeply content in my Zen quilting state, I even "twirled" all my seam intersections as well. Sheesh.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Thursday evening I showed off my quilt at the guild meeting and handed it over to the Symposium people. The Tramp likes this picture because it shows just how big the darned thing is. :-)

During the day Thursday, I alternately worked on sewing on the sleeve and labels and gazing out the window. The bluebirds are hugely busy feeding their brood.

We had a sudden cloudburst.

He's so handsome, I can't resist the photo ops. :-) I bought some new suet cakes and put out more of the worms. The new excitement is we have a couple of crows that come and knock the worm dish and suet cage down. They drag the suet cage across the yard so I have to go looking for it.

Rufous-sided towhee.

One bluebird on the box and one in flight.

I took a holiday from almost everything Friday. No email, no blogs, no sewing. Vacuumed because I have to. :-) I also brushed the dogs. I can't believe how much hair I got off of Ngaire! Dabbled in some clicker training too. Other than that I read a library book and hung around the front window and the front stoop taking photos.

We have woodpeckers. (Note the still-empty raised garden frame.)

I got out the manual and played with the camera for a bit. This is an "arty" setting which does things to the color. I'll have to try it when I'm not sitting on the porch in my pajamas. LOL

Blue-black! :-)

Titmouse

Brown-headed nuthatch. First time I've seen them here.

Hello robin......and turtle!

There's that handsome guy again.

Woodpecker considering how to reach for the suet.

No comment.

Blue, red and yellow. Love all the colors.

One of the crows waiting for me to go back inside. :-)

Five fast-growing chicks. I can see the blue feathers on their wings now. I think this is the last photo I dare take. Sigh.

As of today we have a full garden! Actually an overflowing garden. I still have to move quite a bit excess dirt from the other side of it.

I put some of the excess here. Now we need edging, flowers and mulch.....to say nothing of painting the mailbox and post.